See my previous thoughts regarding sheeple and the influence of advertising budgets

Perhaps people should care. Odds are that Harper will form another minority government. He will need the support of opposition to do anything (anything legal, anyway). What the opposition looks like will depend to a fairly large extent on which way Quebec votes.

The French debate is going to be more influential than the English one (and it will be broadcast with simultaneous translation).

It's going to be interesting to see how things play out on The Rock. We only have 7 federal MP's but in a minority government every little counts. In the last election Danny Williams had fallen out with Steve over the Atlantic Accord & the 'ABC Anything But Conservative' campaign was in full effect. Provincial tories were not allowed to campaign for federal tories on pain of death - the current Premier Kathy Dunderdale actually went door to door with a Liberal candidate, Siobhan Coady. Newfoundland duly returned 6 Liberal and 1 NDP MP.

Scroll forward to now. Danny is gone. Steve has promised to back the Lower Churchill hydro project so it's all a provincial conservative/federal conservative love in, with Kathy D and Steve H kissing and a huggin in a tree (so to speak.) In a quite naked show of political patronage Fabian Manning a former MHA (provincial) who last time failed to win a seat as an MP was given a Senator position so he could spend two years making a tidy sum and coming back to the Rock every time the latest pork barrel funding announcement was made. Come this election he resigns from the Senate and stands again as a MP. In a similar vein, Loyola Sullivan (anoither former MHA and provincial minister) comes back from his Federal non-job as 'Fisheries Ambassador' to stand as an MP. Apparently the electorate are to forget the rhetoric of "Harper and broken promises" from 2 years ago and trust the man now.

It's either going to pay off which will really mean that the electorate is stupid or massively backfire for the current provincial premier. I reckon it is 50/50 at present. The cynicsm around this approach makes me cringe. And I'm a tory by nature, albeit one that can't vote here. Yet.

Sorry to have neglected this thread so far today. The day job has been a bit pressing. Mr. V is referring to my contention that Harper is a serial liar and asks for examples from last night.

Three whoppers particularly caught my attention:

Harper claimed that in the event of a hung parliament, the party with the largest number of seats forms government and that the only alternative is a new election. This is simply untrue as he knows. As Ignatieff pointed out, the largest party certainly has the right to form a government and then try to maintain the confidence of the House. If they fail to do so, the GG has the option of asking the next largest party to try their hand at the same job. Even after Duceppe and Layton weighed in with reminders that Harper had written, and they had co-signed, a letter to the GG in 204 making precisely this point, Harper continued to lie.

The second lie was that the G8/G20 expenditures in general and in Parry Sound-Muskoka in particular were all fully justified. No-one in the world, including Harper himself, believes this to be true.

The third was his claim that the opposition parties had voted against a stimulus package announced in Nov. 2008. When the other three pointed out that there was no stimulus package announced in 2008 and that the Economic Statement contained nothing but truculent ideology, and that anyway he had prorogued parliament rather than allow a vote on it, he slid away from that. But the lie remains.

If they are the "biggest" three then its a storm in a teacup really. They all stay on message despite the facts. If they really were whoppers then why didn't the other three exploit it?

I thought Layton was ok. There is principle to what he says however unrealistic. Iggy is just very very weak. Duceppe was pretty unintelligible.

I notice Iggy had no answer to the charge from Layton about his poor attendance record. So much for his respect for the house of commons.

But they did. That's why I'm so gobsmacked that nobody seems to care. "Stay on message despite the facts?" Is that the same as "brazen contempt for the democratic process"?

I did notice that. No-one has ever mentioned it before, but I presume it's true. Still it must get a bit much to have to vote through gritted teeth or abstain so as to avoid precipitating an "unwanted election" while you try to rebuild your party so that you can stop gritting your teeth or abstaining.

You won't get any disagreement from me on that but, fact is, enough don't.

Influential to whom? I suspect, but don't know, that most don't care. If people did then, and if all the rhetoric about Mr. Harper was correct, one would expect a landslide away from him. I just don't see that happening.

As others have stated, if he can treat Parliament the way that he has and not be taken to task on it by the electorate, the electorate obviously don't care or believe the alternatives to be worse. Neither of which provide comfort for the alternates.

Most voters never change their colours. All campaigning is aimed at floaters. In most ridings, it will only need a couple of thousand to change their minds and ............

It's not university debating society its about getting the message across. Harper can stand there and say "if you want to rock the boat with the economy and have these three bickering clowns in then fine vote for them". It's simple and effective. Iggy started going on about Cairo or something at one point - he may be right or wrong it doesn't matter but that sort of thing won't win any voters over.

KAIROS, the charity that Bev Oda cut federal funding from for ideological reasons at Harper's request and then mislead / lied to parliament about the reason, saying that it was CIDA decision, not hers.

Surely even you have seen the ^NOT document? More contempt.

I only know about the "not" woman from what's been on the news. It's good for a bit of theatrical entertainment in the house of commons but it's of very little significance when it comes to voting intentions in a general election. Iggy may not even have been in the commons when it was going on.

A majority for the Tories

AC, the French language debate doesn't start until 8 pm EST tonight: you'll have time to finish your tea this time.

Bon apertit!

As far as I can see, the only channel around here carrying tonight's debate is CBLFT, in french only.

Not a problem for me and the Mrs., but a bit unexpected.

Well that was more fun than yesterday's debate.

Since apparently very few of you could watch it, please be informed that Ignatieff won hands down, Duceppe did well as did Layton, while Harper looked the total prat he is.

Jack spent far too much time pretending that he is a serious candidate to be the next PM, while Duceppe played too much to the local gallery without being very convincing about anything in particular. Those two went head to head several times and I would say Layton won.

I've decided (as a public service, as usual) to send my suggestions to each of them for new Quebec campaign slogans...

Lib: Nous parlons aux gens, ils parlent de l'argent.

Con: Nous sommes ici pourquoi? Puis-je rentrer chez moi?

NDP: Les parties anciens sont, err, anciens: nous, nous sommes, err, nouveau.

BQ: C'est drole ces politiques. J'aime le jeu. Je suis assez bon dans ces debats.

I withdraw all copyrights to these as of now.